Courtney's Car was totaled!
Donation protected
My daughter Courtney is a very special young woman with amazing compassion for others. She has a charitable heart who is always trying to help those around her in any capacity that she can.
Last week after Courtney left school and was heading to one of her per diem babysitting jobs and an erratic driver weaving in and out caused an accident. As she tried to get away from their car Courtney hit the guard rail with her car, spin it around and hit the opposite side of her car on the guardrail causing it to be a total loss. Luckily, she has no lacerations or broken bones, only a headache and bruising. . Since the other driver just continued down the road, she has no recourse from the person who caused the accident. In addition to having her car totaled, the Police Officer said she would have to pay for the damaged guardrail. I wondered if he was kidding, but she said she didn’t think so.
I live 4 hours away from her, but to relieve a stressful situation for her for awhile, I managed to get my car to her so that she could continue on with school, doctor appointments and all her commitments. I am disabled myself and hoping that after I get my own car paid off I can put that money to a second insurance so I can my surgeries. So I can’t help her much finacially, other than give her my car to use until we can find a reliable one for her and insurance. Courtney is in desperate need of help financially to finding a reliable car that won’t breakdown on the road. She's saving all the money she's earning and bringing her credit card home to see what we can figure out. She has school, all her medical appointments and her per diem babysitting jobs so she’s on the road constantly, it has to be reliable. She manages to get by with her bills, but doesn’t have money for extravagant things like a car loan. She can’t take on more than these two-three hour babysitting jobs (which pay decent, but they fluctuate each week, so she can’t rely on that for a bank loan). Plus she has no extra time in the day to fit any more sitting. (By the way, she’s spectacular with children, all the parents and children love her and I know she'll make a great Mom one day!) I’m worried that all of this extra added stress will be making her medical symptoms flair worse than they normally do.
I am the type of person who doesn't ask people for help much in life, but offer my services often. I feel stuck at the moment wanting to help my daughter, but don't know what to do. It was suggested by a friend to do a gofundme campaign. (Thank you Sheryl!) know this is a horrible time of year to ask anyone for help with Christmas coming up, but if you could find it in your heart and pocketbook to help this great young woman out, it would be greatly appreciated. She doesn’t know I’m doing this for her. So, please for those of you that know her personally, please don’t tell her. Whatever contributions she gets, I will put in individual cards with your name and your comment for her so she knows who it’s from. Whatever help I get, I will give to her when she arrives home for Christmas Day. If you can’t help her out, I totally understand! It’s a tough time of year I know and there are so many other bigger needs out there in the world. I do ask that if you can, could to please share this on your pages or share it with your friends?
When she sees a need, she jumps in and does whatever she can. She started volunteering at my job when she was about 12 years old. I would drive a bus load of donations from the City Soup Kitchen to the elderly housing residents. She would knock on all doors of the residents and let them know we had food for them if they needed it. She would also distribute it directly to their apartments of the elderly who were too infirmed and who couldn’t make it to the bus. On many occasions on her summer vacations she would babysit large groups of children for free so that parents could attend classes and workshops my employer provided for residents who wanted to work towards self-sufficiency. As she watched the news on 9/11, she noticed the volunteer’s hands were getting bloody from pulling the rubble with bare hands, so she asked her Jr. High principal if she could organized a glove drive amongst her classmates. They collected close to 500 pairs of work gloves and sent them to NYC. As you see she’s had this charitable calling since she was a young girl. This continues on into her young adult years as well. She’s volunteered for the past four years at a local Rehabilitation Center in NY helping with their annual outdoor festivities. She does whatever they need of her, sometimes she does activities and games, other times she face paints, and socializes with patients and families. She always stays with people who have had car accidents or medical emergencies until appropriate help arrives, and even goes out of her way to bring these victims family members to the hospital if they don't have transportation. It amazes her at how many people just stand around in these situations and pull out their phones to take pictures instead of actually helping!
Even though she has many health issues in her life and has to pull back when she gets run down, she has been putting most of her energy into attaining her college degree. But because of her ongoing health issues, she has to stop and start when she feels better. Academically, she receives great grades, and continues to accomplish wonderful things for her school outside of classes. She founded and directed a Glee group for two years at her college that embraced approximately 50 students of all backgrounds regardless of race, creed, religion or sexual orientation. She's welcomed all people into this group regardless of their abilities including some people with struggles and who were more or less on the fringe of school life. By encouraging the group as a whole, everyone was accepted and had a fuller school experience. She had a knack of knowing what each person's abilities or limitations were and giving them their moment to shine. She helped unify the theater, music and dance departments within this group and collectively they put on some wonderful shows. Instead of charging a monetary for these shows, she got permission to take either donations of canned and dry goods or clothes to donate to the battered women’s shelters and food pantries. She worked with student government for several semesters to raise funds for struggling students who needed metro or bus cards for temporary transportation situations. These are just a couple of the things that she’s done recently. With all of the productive activities she does, she was nominated and won the SUNY Key Award for outstanding leadership skills and making student and campus life better for her peers at Westchester. She’s been told that she’s been nominated for a second time for the SUNY Chancellor’s Award which is the highest award you can win under the Southern New York University Umbrella of schools. This involves outstanding academics, leadership examples, and contributing to positive changes in the school. This semester it was suggested by staff that she apply for a position in the leadership program called “Commitment to Change” part of the Clinton Initiative. She was selected and has been participating since the beginning of the fall.
On a more personal note….Courtney continues to donate what she has to the women’s shelters and food banks. For her last birthday, she asked all family members and friends, not to buy her anything or take her to dinner, but to donate to a fund that she wanted to use to help the homeless in NYC. She raised nearly $600.00 and was able to buy over 300 pounds of goods that included things like toothbrushes, toothpaste, matches, warm socks, soup, deodorant, soap, lotion, conditioner, shampoo, water, snacks, etc,. She included a blank, stamped, greeting card in case they wanted to reach out to someone in their lives. Over 50 men, women and children were able to get two, one gallon bags of necessities and some sandwiches. She even bought toys for the children she knew she’d see among the homeless. Her lovely friends celebrated the day with her by helping her distribute everything so it became a nice community effort!
At this point, I hope your still with me reading this. I just felt it was important to share with you who my daughter Courtney is. As a single Mom, we’ve developed a very strong mother daughter bond, that a lot of my friends have told me they wished they’ve had with their kids. She knew I worked two jobs because finances warranted that, but she never asked for anything extravagant for Christmas or her birthday. She was appreciative of everything I got for her, or did for her as a Mom. But I'm disabled now, so I am no longer able to help her with big financial situations like this.
All of what she accomplishes makes me so proud of her because she’s not without problems of her own though. She gets knocked down over and over, but I admire her strength because she picks herself up and dusts herself off and shoulders on. One of the most significant setbacks in her life was as she and her fiancé Herman were making plans for their wedding, he died unexpectedly in front of her from an undiagnosed enlarged heart. She is still devastated from losing her soul mate six years later. Her other huge setback was when she developed something called Lyme disease as a teenager that has since taken her on this horrible life long journey for her. Various symptoms of this disease have plagued her body today and most days since she’s been diagnosed. Most people think Lyme is just getting bit by a tick and getting a bulls eye rash. If you catch it early, it’s not a big problem, but if you don’t, it is so much more than that. It’s often debilitating for her. She suffers severe migraines and muscle spasms where she sometimes can’t walk, gastrointestinal issues, cardiac arrhythmia and asthma. She also has herniated disks and fibromyalgia. I could go on, but I will stop at those as others are more personal. For most people, they see this bubbly, happy, helpful girl, but it's a facade. They don’t see or hear the crying I hear I hear at night when her days done and we talk on the phone. She’s totally spent or in pain. It gets better at times, but she still suffers many setbacks as this disease rears it’s ugly head, most often with stress triggers. This worries me now because she's in a stressful situation at the moment.
I’m sorry to take you on this long story to get to this point, but this is why I am asking you all and gofundme for help. Since both Courtney and I have both donated to multiple gofundme causes this year alone, I thought I would surprise her and ask for help for her and her situation.
When she was a little girl, my brother always told her to cast her bread on the water and maybe one day when she didn’t expect it, it may float back to her. She's done well throughout her life casting her bread. Maybe this will be the time that some it floats back to her!
Thank you for listening and I hope that you and your family have a healthy, happy season of celebrations whatever it is you celebrate!
Last week after Courtney left school and was heading to one of her per diem babysitting jobs and an erratic driver weaving in and out caused an accident. As she tried to get away from their car Courtney hit the guard rail with her car, spin it around and hit the opposite side of her car on the guardrail causing it to be a total loss. Luckily, she has no lacerations or broken bones, only a headache and bruising. . Since the other driver just continued down the road, she has no recourse from the person who caused the accident. In addition to having her car totaled, the Police Officer said she would have to pay for the damaged guardrail. I wondered if he was kidding, but she said she didn’t think so.
I live 4 hours away from her, but to relieve a stressful situation for her for awhile, I managed to get my car to her so that she could continue on with school, doctor appointments and all her commitments. I am disabled myself and hoping that after I get my own car paid off I can put that money to a second insurance so I can my surgeries. So I can’t help her much finacially, other than give her my car to use until we can find a reliable one for her and insurance. Courtney is in desperate need of help financially to finding a reliable car that won’t breakdown on the road. She's saving all the money she's earning and bringing her credit card home to see what we can figure out. She has school, all her medical appointments and her per diem babysitting jobs so she’s on the road constantly, it has to be reliable. She manages to get by with her bills, but doesn’t have money for extravagant things like a car loan. She can’t take on more than these two-three hour babysitting jobs (which pay decent, but they fluctuate each week, so she can’t rely on that for a bank loan). Plus she has no extra time in the day to fit any more sitting. (By the way, she’s spectacular with children, all the parents and children love her and I know she'll make a great Mom one day!) I’m worried that all of this extra added stress will be making her medical symptoms flair worse than they normally do.
I am the type of person who doesn't ask people for help much in life, but offer my services often. I feel stuck at the moment wanting to help my daughter, but don't know what to do. It was suggested by a friend to do a gofundme campaign. (Thank you Sheryl!) know this is a horrible time of year to ask anyone for help with Christmas coming up, but if you could find it in your heart and pocketbook to help this great young woman out, it would be greatly appreciated. She doesn’t know I’m doing this for her. So, please for those of you that know her personally, please don’t tell her. Whatever contributions she gets, I will put in individual cards with your name and your comment for her so she knows who it’s from. Whatever help I get, I will give to her when she arrives home for Christmas Day. If you can’t help her out, I totally understand! It’s a tough time of year I know and there are so many other bigger needs out there in the world. I do ask that if you can, could to please share this on your pages or share it with your friends?
When she sees a need, she jumps in and does whatever she can. She started volunteering at my job when she was about 12 years old. I would drive a bus load of donations from the City Soup Kitchen to the elderly housing residents. She would knock on all doors of the residents and let them know we had food for them if they needed it. She would also distribute it directly to their apartments of the elderly who were too infirmed and who couldn’t make it to the bus. On many occasions on her summer vacations she would babysit large groups of children for free so that parents could attend classes and workshops my employer provided for residents who wanted to work towards self-sufficiency. As she watched the news on 9/11, she noticed the volunteer’s hands were getting bloody from pulling the rubble with bare hands, so she asked her Jr. High principal if she could organized a glove drive amongst her classmates. They collected close to 500 pairs of work gloves and sent them to NYC. As you see she’s had this charitable calling since she was a young girl. This continues on into her young adult years as well. She’s volunteered for the past four years at a local Rehabilitation Center in NY helping with their annual outdoor festivities. She does whatever they need of her, sometimes she does activities and games, other times she face paints, and socializes with patients and families. She always stays with people who have had car accidents or medical emergencies until appropriate help arrives, and even goes out of her way to bring these victims family members to the hospital if they don't have transportation. It amazes her at how many people just stand around in these situations and pull out their phones to take pictures instead of actually helping!
Even though she has many health issues in her life and has to pull back when she gets run down, she has been putting most of her energy into attaining her college degree. But because of her ongoing health issues, she has to stop and start when she feels better. Academically, she receives great grades, and continues to accomplish wonderful things for her school outside of classes. She founded and directed a Glee group for two years at her college that embraced approximately 50 students of all backgrounds regardless of race, creed, religion or sexual orientation. She's welcomed all people into this group regardless of their abilities including some people with struggles and who were more or less on the fringe of school life. By encouraging the group as a whole, everyone was accepted and had a fuller school experience. She had a knack of knowing what each person's abilities or limitations were and giving them their moment to shine. She helped unify the theater, music and dance departments within this group and collectively they put on some wonderful shows. Instead of charging a monetary for these shows, she got permission to take either donations of canned and dry goods or clothes to donate to the battered women’s shelters and food pantries. She worked with student government for several semesters to raise funds for struggling students who needed metro or bus cards for temporary transportation situations. These are just a couple of the things that she’s done recently. With all of the productive activities she does, she was nominated and won the SUNY Key Award for outstanding leadership skills and making student and campus life better for her peers at Westchester. She’s been told that she’s been nominated for a second time for the SUNY Chancellor’s Award which is the highest award you can win under the Southern New York University Umbrella of schools. This involves outstanding academics, leadership examples, and contributing to positive changes in the school. This semester it was suggested by staff that she apply for a position in the leadership program called “Commitment to Change” part of the Clinton Initiative. She was selected and has been participating since the beginning of the fall.
On a more personal note….Courtney continues to donate what she has to the women’s shelters and food banks. For her last birthday, she asked all family members and friends, not to buy her anything or take her to dinner, but to donate to a fund that she wanted to use to help the homeless in NYC. She raised nearly $600.00 and was able to buy over 300 pounds of goods that included things like toothbrushes, toothpaste, matches, warm socks, soup, deodorant, soap, lotion, conditioner, shampoo, water, snacks, etc,. She included a blank, stamped, greeting card in case they wanted to reach out to someone in their lives. Over 50 men, women and children were able to get two, one gallon bags of necessities and some sandwiches. She even bought toys for the children she knew she’d see among the homeless. Her lovely friends celebrated the day with her by helping her distribute everything so it became a nice community effort!
At this point, I hope your still with me reading this. I just felt it was important to share with you who my daughter Courtney is. As a single Mom, we’ve developed a very strong mother daughter bond, that a lot of my friends have told me they wished they’ve had with their kids. She knew I worked two jobs because finances warranted that, but she never asked for anything extravagant for Christmas or her birthday. She was appreciative of everything I got for her, or did for her as a Mom. But I'm disabled now, so I am no longer able to help her with big financial situations like this.
All of what she accomplishes makes me so proud of her because she’s not without problems of her own though. She gets knocked down over and over, but I admire her strength because she picks herself up and dusts herself off and shoulders on. One of the most significant setbacks in her life was as she and her fiancé Herman were making plans for their wedding, he died unexpectedly in front of her from an undiagnosed enlarged heart. She is still devastated from losing her soul mate six years later. Her other huge setback was when she developed something called Lyme disease as a teenager that has since taken her on this horrible life long journey for her. Various symptoms of this disease have plagued her body today and most days since she’s been diagnosed. Most people think Lyme is just getting bit by a tick and getting a bulls eye rash. If you catch it early, it’s not a big problem, but if you don’t, it is so much more than that. It’s often debilitating for her. She suffers severe migraines and muscle spasms where she sometimes can’t walk, gastrointestinal issues, cardiac arrhythmia and asthma. She also has herniated disks and fibromyalgia. I could go on, but I will stop at those as others are more personal. For most people, they see this bubbly, happy, helpful girl, but it's a facade. They don’t see or hear the crying I hear I hear at night when her days done and we talk on the phone. She’s totally spent or in pain. It gets better at times, but she still suffers many setbacks as this disease rears it’s ugly head, most often with stress triggers. This worries me now because she's in a stressful situation at the moment.
I’m sorry to take you on this long story to get to this point, but this is why I am asking you all and gofundme for help. Since both Courtney and I have both donated to multiple gofundme causes this year alone, I thought I would surprise her and ask for help for her and her situation.
When she was a little girl, my brother always told her to cast her bread on the water and maybe one day when she didn’t expect it, it may float back to her. She's done well throughout her life casting her bread. Maybe this will be the time that some it floats back to her!
Thank you for listening and I hope that you and your family have a healthy, happy season of celebrations whatever it is you celebrate!
Organizer
Jill Silveira
Organizer
Manchester, NH
